The first of twenty-three pouches to close was not the lightest.
The woman put an old spoon inside her cloth pouch, then took it out again. Somewhere else she might receive a new one, she said. This handle still fitted her hand. Instead of asking her to choose lighter things, Darae asked what she wanted to keep within reach.
It was the morning twenty-four days after all twenty-three residents' temporary handover at Raon, in the property preparation room. Everyone remained under temporary support. Today they would repack personal belongings brought during the original rescue and kept or used at Raon. They had not recovered the belongings still inside Sai's main habitat.
Each person received one pouch and one restraint. Matching sizes did not mean matching destinations. The two adult relocation-route applicants, people waiting for reuse conditions, and those wanting only consultation could all organize their belongings. Closing a package was not consent to a long-term move: the first notice said so.
Darae read that aloud too. Haeseong did not answer for everyone as representative. People participated through chosen routes. Minors' belongings required their own wishes and guardian confirmation. Anyone requesting help with packing received a small list for checking what went in and what stayed out.
The woman's first measurement exceeded expectations. The instrument was not wrong: a communal support beneath the pouch had been measured with it. Before asking her to remove the spoon, Darae checked the actual measuring load. Separating storage support and personal cargo changed the recorded mass.
“I nearly threw out my spoon first.”
“The support was trying to move with you,” Darae said.
Their laughter was brief. The support returned to the room; the spoon stayed in the pouch. Before finding mass to remove, they had to establish whose load they were measuring.
Near the rotating ring, objects pressed weakly toward their supports. Actual flight cargo mass still required the designated measurement standard. In the axial loading area, floating would not make that same mass disappear. Darae did not build a cargo sheet from how light something felt in the hand.
One resident brought three photographs. Would keeping only one help? The few sheets' difference lay within the permitted allowance. The resident nevertheless seemed to think discarding everything would make them less of a burden. Darae checked the actual limit with the responsible officer and explained. Safety rules provided no reason to demand an unnecessary sacrifice.
They looked at each photograph and packed all three. This gave no permission for public exhibition or investigative submission. The packer recorded external identification and seals without photographing their contents. Authority to find someone's bag from outside differed from authority to know everything within it.
The next tool pouch exceeded its limit too. This time no support was involved. Personal tools had become mixed with equipment borrowed at Raon. Their user wanted them together because all were familiar in their hands. Darae explained that borrowed property could not become personal cargo simply by joining the bundle.
The shared tools returned to their original custodian. The owner selected small, frequently used personal tools first, leaving the rest in separate storage with rights retained. An actual custodian and next inquiry route were assigned. Failure to fit one pouch did not mean abandoning everything outside it.
At his turn, Haeseong produced the folded dining-table photograph. The original had returned to his custody; responsible officers retained only permitted copies. Today he placed that original in his personal pouch. The dining table itself remained a communal asset inside the habitat, subject to its conditional-use agreement.
Catalog suggested table recovery beneath photograph. The limited software had linked similar words. Darae declined its suggestion, separating photograph storage from the table's actual location. An erroneous proposed heading created no new fact.
“If I take just the picture, will it feel like taking the home?” Haeseong asked.
Darae fitted a thin protective board into the pouch instead of answering. After a moment, he said this did not mean he was giving up the home. She recorded only his stated opinion. Packing possessions did not require a housing decision.
Maru arrived with a guardian, a small seed pouch and the notebook. Should the old night-contact sheet be removed? the guardian asked. Maru wanted it kept: a memory of past work, not today's roster.
Keeping that sheet did not restore night communications duties, Darae explained. Adults staffed current professional duty; Maru's participation involved limited daytime learning and questions. The old roster folded inside the notebook beside a newly checked learning entry. Past responsibility could remain visible while present responsibility changed.
The seeds went into a small closed inner pouch. Maru pulled the knot so tight that the fabric curled. The packer showed the loosened edge without taking over the hands and tying it. Maru rearranged it; the guardian checked. This was safely packing personal belongings, not assembling operational equipment.
Maru hoped to send the leaf-container woman photographs. Once new contact routes existed, she said, they could exchange as much as each wished. They supplied no address that did not yet exist. Darae separately checked the container's present storage and transport conditions with support. A living plant could not be compressed into the same envelope as clothes.
Eleven pouches had closed by lunch. Darae did not record eleven people ready to relocate. The number described currently checked personal-property packages. Destinations, passages and individual housing choices remained; the conditions also allowed packages to be reopened later.
Seo arrived carrying a meal packet in one hand and inspection copies in the other. Darae made a place to secure the packet before taking papers. He would explain after eating. News of progress on specialist equipment need not spread through an incomplete account halfway through a meal.
After lunch they went to maintenance for their appointment: follow-up results on the actual interface assembly tested for pressure-tightness yesterday. Pouches and equipment load tests might share the broad heading property preparation. Responsible people and standards were entirely different.
The tester reread the existing tug assembly's identification and adjustable configuration. Pressure-tightness, permitted load and thermal review followed for that configuration against the original design. Release after interruption received its own test. Darae received the assessment summary and relevant acceptance results, within her work's actual scope.
Residual load remained during the first release test, so unlocking did not proceed. They neither called the equipment broken nor forced success with more effort. After the specialist confirmed the prescribed load-removed state, release was performed again. The stopping sequence reached conditions in which the equipment could actually be released.
Follow-up tests and specialist review passed for the limited configuration. Final observation still had to establish whether the local connection matched preserved records; differing approach conditions would require a stop. A model had not graduated into a spacecraft component. Existing flight equipment, with its own results, was ready for acceptance by the designated vessel.
Darae read test blocks and real equipment on separate handover lines. Seo checked each vessel's equipment location. Narae retained its rescue ring. The two tugs used their own certified equipment and permitted interface configurations. An earlier draft's mistake—copying one photograph across three vessels—did not return.
Back in preparation, one pouch had the wrong label. Two similar cloth bags had exchanged places after lunch. Darae did not break seals to inspect their contents. She first compared external features in prehandover photographs with the packer's and owners' accounts.
Different repairs at the restraint ends distinguished them. Compared with permitted external features, the bags returned to their proper places. Staff recorded where the exchange occurred and how it was checked. Unsigned did not mean harmless. Finding it tomorrow before a vessel would have kept more people waiting for the same check.
The afternoon's last participant could not tighten a restraint easily with an injured arm. He first said he still wanted relocation consultation without having made a final choice. Support confirmed that status. Today's helping hands would not make him a third confirmed applicant.
The packer read and placed his chosen items one by one. Heavy personal tools went into separate storage; a thin handkerchief stayed. Its private inscription did not need reading aloud, he said. Darae wrote one handkerchief on the external list. Checking objects did not require every story they carried.
When the twenty-third pouch closed, Darae counted restraints again. All twenty-three assigned restraints were on their individual bundles. Spares remained separate stock, outside the people count. Closed pouches and people at Raon happened to share a number; they did not share its meaning.
She read current locations: designated Raon storage and individually permitted receipt places. Nobody had loaded everyone's moving belongings aboard the tugs. Tomorrow's observation or flight decision could change without packaging forcing anybody's long-term departure.
The cooking support, communal facilities and disputed assets inside the main habitat retained existing locations and conditions. S-6's three support items stayed in unoccupied preservation. Faulty 7-B, original card and packaging, the unused pump and candidate cartridge had entered no personal pouch. Today's packing scope stayed distinct to its last line.
Haeseong read the resident notice's closing words aloud: We organized what is already at hand. Rights in remaining belongings and individual housing choices will continue to be checked. He took the longer formal text too. Passing only its simple explanation to another officer might turn it into a different promise.
Darae handed remaining preparation-room work and storage conditions to a colleague. Seeing her name leave the packing assignment felt oddly empty. But attending tomorrow's final observation briefing required somebody actually taking this door. She left only after the colleague accepted and checked appointments.
Mujin's brief reply confirmed equipment acceptance. Plans separating return, withdrawal and planned reserve fuel remained under review. The final window awaited two accepted independent observations. Calling vessels prepared would not make the object wait.
Her last view held twenty-three matching pouches with different names and storage conditions. She had not made every possession light. She had reduced a few boxes that made people discard things they need not lose.
The first observation's receipt alert appeared on her terminal. No acceptance mark accompanied it yet. She secured the terminal instead of pulling open a departure window. The time for moving the home now required two separate checks outside its residents' pouches.